Posted
by
Zonkon Wednesday December 15, 2004 @09:35AM
from the get-your-black-mage-on dept.

On February 19th in Chicago, Illinois, a concert series titled "Dear Friends" will kick off a U.S. tour. The music? Music from the Final Fantasy series performed by orchestra. From the press release: "The first FINAL FANTASY concert in the U.S. brought fans from far and wide together in Los Angeles to share in an unforgettable musical experience," said Ichiro Otobe, president and COO of Square Enix, Inc. "We are pleased to announce that, due to the overwhelmingly positive response, a North American tour will soon bring the emotionally moving and powerful scores to fans across the country." This is personally very exciting for me. See you there!

Do you know why they don't 'deep-link' directly to Ticketmaster?Neither do I. Ticketmasters lawsuit about it was thrown out, and the judge in charge of the case made this statement:

"Hyperlinking does not itself involve a violation of the Copyright Act," Hupp said in his ruling. "There is no deception in what is happening. This is analogous to using a library's card index to get reference to particular items, albeit faster and more efficiently."

from their terms of use [ticketmaster.com] (illegally deep linked of course):Permitted Use

You agree that you are only authorized to visit, view and to retain a copy of pages of this Site for your own personal use, and that you shall not duplicate, download, publish, modify or otherwise distribute the material on this Site for any purpose other than to review event and promotional information, for personal use, or to purchase tickets or merchandise for your personal use, unless ot

They can always say that they prohibit it, but losing the case in court means that they could not actually take action against someone for deep linking. Someone can say just about anything; I can say that anyone who looks at me in public owes me $100, but that doesn't mean I can legally collect. I suspect the reason Ticketmaster doesn't like deep linking is to prevent other ticket brokers from collecting ad revenue or whatever when they direct people to the Ticketmaster site. But that is the nature of the i

My wife sang in the LOTR series when it opened in Baltimore. The show was very near sold out (it may have been sold out at the end) and it was only a tuesday and wednesday apperance. There was a large mix of usual choral arts and symphony patrons and also LOTR fans. I don't know how big the fanbase of FF is, but I imagine that they'll get a lot of regualr symphony patrons as well as fans and should do well.

As cool as this show would be, especially since I live near Chicago, I will not go if Ticketmaster is the only way to get tickets. When it comes to companies with abusive business practices, which so many Slashdotters hate, I can't think of a worse example. Let's start with the complete monopoly they have over ticket distribution. How Pearl Jam lost their lawsuit is beyond me; Ticketmaster must be contributing generously to the correct campaigns. Then there are the fees. There is a service charge per ticket

The compositions in many of the FF games are really top-notch; there are a few off-beat tunes (think the Chochobo scenes) but for the most part it isn't your dime-a-minute loop-based stuff but moving, uplifting, really cinematic kind of music. Performance by a full orchestra? Oh yeah, I'll even buy that.

You might be interested (if you haven't heard about it already) in a site called OverClocked Remix [ocremix.org], which has remixes (in many, MANY different styles... instrumental, techno, rock, even rap, you name it) of video game music available to download. All of the music went through a judging panel before it was posted to the site, so 90% of it is some very good stuff. Take a listen.

Oh I love that freaking site. I can honestly say more than half of the music in my portable players came out of OC remix. Which is an absolutely insance percentage.

Anyways, when it comes to RPG music. Phantasy Star 1,2,4 has the best ones. Final Fantasy has that intro harp song, but aside from that, it's really over-rated. Why not a concert for Megaman or Castlevania games instead.

I think it's great to see video game music finally getting the (fairly) widespread critical acclaim it has so long deserved. RPGs have had awesome music for year (Secret of Mana springs to my mind), but now it seems people are really starting to appreciate the music for its own sake.

Maybe the consoles of the future will offer as much scope for awesome sound as they currently do for the visuals.

It's funny you should mention Secret of Mana, I also think it has some of the best RPG music around, even better than some of the FF games.

On another note, as music gets more and more orchestrated (meaning "real music", not SNES midi stuff), it's much harder to remember/get stuck in your head. I still remember almost all the music From FFII(US, the one with Cecil) and games like Mega Man 2, games I played like 12 years ago, but I can't for the life of me remember music from FFIX or X off-hand.

Two words: Chrono Trigger.I consider it one of the best game OSTs i've ever heard, even tho it's only 16-bit midi.Some tracks there are really moving and emotional. It's amazing what talented people can do with 16-bit!

now it seems people are really starting to appreciate the music for its own sake.

Well, it remains to be seen if these concerts will attract general attention. I would guess not, that the audience will be almost entirely Final Fantasy fanboys, interested in the music because they played the game.

Obviously, their two next concert tours will be held only in Japan, and will be called Final Fantasy Concert II and III. They will then hold another tour in the US, but pretend the Japanese tours never happened and refer to it as "Final Fantasy Concert II." The music will also be less technically demanding for the US dates than for the shows in Japan, which will be called Final Fantasy Concert IV.

Confusing, yes, but not nearly as confusing as it will be when the fourth concert series to play in the US i

In Final Fantasy Concert Tactics, you'll have a rag-tag bunch of musicians. You must assign to each musician an instrument, then arrange them on the stage, and attempt to complete the concert.

The later Final Fantasy Concert Tactics Advance, however, will a) be held in smaller venues, b) be somewhat poorly lit, and c) be complicated by the conductor giving you pointless and arbitrary challenges for each song, such as 'no woodwinds' or 'stringed instruments cannot use their first string.'

As a computer geek - especially one who has played damn near every Finaly Fantasy game - I'm thrilled as it is by the opportunity to hear these great soundtracks in a medium other than MIDI. I don't care how far the technology develops, nothing beats a live orchestra in a real concert hall, period.

As a trained classical musician living and [trying to] freelance in Chicago, I'm thrilled even more (and would get a nice early Christmas by being called to play said gig... ahh, one can only dream...)

Too bad the article says nothing of who actually arraanged these works for orchestra... (To the Slashdot crowd who may not know what I mean - I ask who actually transcribed the full orchestral score and individual parts from the MIDI original.) Was it Nobuo Uematsu himself? Being a great composer (and in his genre, he certainly is, IMHO) is one thing, while being a great arranger/orchestrator is an entirely different matter. His stock would go waaaaay up in my book if he did both....

Nobuo Uematsu is one of the best composers of the present time. This is not about a bunch of video game fanboys with too much time and money on their hands, this is about a bunch of music afficionados going to a concert.

What is stupid or gay about a bunch of music afficionados going to a concert? If you think of the music as separate from the game, that's whay it becomes. And yes, Nobuo Uematsu's music is good enough to stand on its own and not as part of Final Fantasy.

Before I stopped downloading music (for ethical reasons) I used to download and listen to Final Fantasy music all the time, while I wasn't playing the game. And I don't even like Final Fantasy that much.

So, before you think that this will just be a bunch of people who live in their parents' basement dressed up like Cloud, think again. It really is good music.

I like Final Fantasy music and Nobuo Uematsu as much as anyone, but it is program music, like film soundtracks - fun, but "one of the best composers of the present time?" I'm afraid that suggests you know a lot about videogames, and not so much about contemporary composition.

It doesn't preclude you from being a great composer, but it's not sufficient to make you one - and some of the people on my list made music for films. But if your scope of contemporary orchestral music is limited to videogame and movie soundtracks, you're probably not well qualified to produce an informed judgement on just who a great contemporary composer is.

Uematsu is definitely not one of the greatest composer of the current time. I enjoy his music, but it falls far short of actual "serious" (western art music tradition, classical, contemporary classical, modern, whatever you want to call it) music.

Listen to a symphony movement (except maybe from Phillip Glass) and compare it to the FF game music. The two are completely different in their approaches. The symphony movement is designed to build from a beginning statement of themes, developing them until it rea

to kill off John Williams before he writes another stirring brass fanfare. Let's do a test. Fire up "Return to Zork." Listen carefully to the music during the opening scene, flying through the mountains. Now, grab your Harry Potter DVD, close your eyes, and listen to the main theme. Notice any similarities?
Let's get him before he starts taking FF music.

I have ZERO chance of convincing any type of girl that I typically go out with to come along. Calling girl: "Hey you want to see an orchestra concert?"..."Sure that would be fun, what is it?"...."Final Fantas..."++ATH0 "Hello?"

You mean the same guys who'd gladly sell their mother for a first edition copy of Chainmail or who spend $45 on wall hangings of their favorite videogame/anime characters? I think you'll find the basement dwellers will be first in line with their thrift store grade suits and lack of deodorant.

This reminds me of the concerts that Boston Pops with John Williams used to do with his movie scores. They would show a scene from Jaws without the music and then the orchestra would perform. It really showed how important a good score can be - even if it is just background music.

I've been listening to FF music for about 7 years now. I actually have a copy of "Kefka's Domain" (the OST for FF3, as it's the American version) that I used to listen to on a regular basis.
Aside from the game OSTs available for purchase, there already exist a fair amount of Final Fantasy music that was recorded by orchestra. There are several "Piano Collection" compilations (where pieces are performed solo on Piano), as well as some strange remix collections, but my personal favorite (and I still listen to it regularly) is a collection called "Grand Finale", which consists of orchestral renderings of Final Fantasy VI (III)'s tracks. They are all great, although some people have questioned the use of certain instruments here and there (bagpipes on Relm's track?).
If you're real hard core, try to find the Dream Oath Opera (from FFVI)... A 20-minute or so version of it exists out there somewhere, complete with Japanese vocals. Simply amazing.

I haven't heard Grand Finale, though one of my favourite FF CDs is "Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec", the corresponding orchestral CD for FFVIII. The original game soundtrack was fairly orchestral-sounding, so most of the arrangements sound very natural, though there are a couple of fairly odd ones (the synth-pop battle theme "The Man with the Machine Gun" is arranged into something that sounds almost like big band music).

It would be one of the best CDs ever if it weren't for the awful "Eyes on Me".

That's because it has no been "pop-boosted" as orchestral FF8. You need some good equipment and good listening conditions to enjoy it fully. And of course, if you listen to both next to the other, you'll probably think orchestral FF8 sounds better than Grand Finale because it is louder.

I have both, I enjoy both, and I think I prefer Grand Finale a little bit more because it is more classical than orchestral FF8, which is more pop-oriented.

If you guys like final fantasy music or any other kinda of music from video games, http://www.ocremix.org/ [ocremix.org] has alot arrangements of different video games tunes. Don't let the name fool you, it's not filled with those lame techno remixes, it's done by tons of different people with too much time on their hands. Some kinda suck, but some of the remixes are done very well. It's worth a look, imo.

On the one hand, it's great that orchestral music is getting acclaim within the geek crowd, even if it is based on video games. I never caught the FF bug, but so many of my friends did, and in college the music was good background while I did other things in the apartment (generally not at all related to the degree I got in music performance).

On the other hand, RPG music on the whole tends to be overly thematic and soundtrackesque. Very emotional stuff - it doesn't make you think, it makes you sweat. Maybe that's a good release for geeks who think all day, but it compares to 200-years-dead-white-guy classical music in much the same way John Williams does... slightly dumbed down from the original to appeal to the masses.

On the gripping hand, it doesn't matter. People listen to whatever floats their boat, period. Personally I'd much rather attend this then shell out three times as much for kazillionth-row seating at a Britney Spears concert!

If you're seriously interested, find a copy of one or more of the Bach Cello Suites. Listen, keeping in mind that it's just one guy doing all that. Check out this essay [cello.org] for clarification of the issues involved in a successful performance of said works. If there are words you don't understand in context, look them up. You'll learn a lot about why Bach was a musical genius and why his works are still valid and unsurpassed nearly two hundred years later.

Within about 45 seconds of seeing this slashdot story I was already typing in my credit card info for 2 VIP tickets. I'm glad to see they're starting out in my home town (Chicago).

Normally, I balk at the high prices at the local blockbuster, so I hope my girlfriend understands why I had to pay damn near $300 for VIP tickets. I'm always trying to share my passion for videogames with her, so I guess a nice dinner and a night at the opera will do the trick.

Same here. My girlfriend actually got imported CDs of the FFVII music. I'm just hoping that the tour gets a little closer to PA so I have a better chance of going. Anyone have a list of the other locations they'll be performing at?

It is interesting that video games are starting to get credit for their music, from more traditional sources. For the longest time they always put Video game music with the same level as garage bands. But pieces like the Super Mario theme song will stay in a persons head for the rest of their life and remind them of the childhood and it is still a catchy little tune. Many times when I hum a piece from from a video game people tend to have a better connection with that then if I did from a song of the tim

When I played Final Fantasy 1, I knew the franchise would explode into tons of sequels. I've never met anyone who can predict what video game will be fun like me. In a lot of ways it sucks being able to see 10 years down the pipe. Most people just wait and are suprised by what video game comes out. I can already visualize the next big video game, but I need to wait until someone makes it. And mostly people make games almost on target, only to fail on some detail that would otherwise have made their gam

The opening performance for the new Disney-branded, Frank Gehry-designed Los Angeles Concert Hall played a full orchestral concert of "The Music of Final Fantasy." How is this new concert tour "bringing it to the US?"

FINAL FANTASY Debuts First Orchestral Concert in North America Celebrating Video Game Music
LOS ANGELES, Calif., February 18, 2004 - Square Enix U.S.A., Inc. ("Square Enix U.S.A."), the publisher of Square Enix(TM) interactive entertainment products in North America, announced today that

I was just reading about the wild popularity of not only music from the Final Fantasy series, but music from many of the best game series in Japan, in Chris Kohler's excellent book Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life [amazon.com]. And now to hear that it is coming to my sweet home Chicago! Sweeeeet!

I know a few folks from local orchestras who are looking for interesting new things to do, to try to expand their audience beyond the normal concert-going crowd (i.e. old people who only listen to music that's been around for 250+ years).

To do it right, though, would require two things that I frankly don't know where to get them.

One: Permission, and royalties if applicable. For those who don't know, generally orchestral performances and plays, at least where the composer or author is still alive, generall

Uhm, ok... so they played Los Angeles... now they're going to play Chicago...

So playing a second show in another city makes it a "series"? That seems like rather Clintonian hair-splitting. Or are they really planning a TOUR of the U.S.? If so, it sure as hell hasn't been mentioned here or in the article...

I paid $150 for two tickets to "The Music of the Lord of the Rings", and it was a major disappointment. The orchestra was under-rehearsed, with several noticable flubbed notes and a lifeless performance. But mainly the evening was disappointing because it was in a crappy venue, the Auditorium Theater. It looks great, but there was no shell behind the orchestra, and the sound was weak. A 120 piece orchestra should have the ability to get loud at moments, and the crappy venue robbed me of that experience. The

You were lucky enough to either see it in a proper concert hall, with an orchestra that cared enough to rehearse throughly, or both. My wife and I were very excited to be there, and were sorely disappointed. I doubt we'll ever attend that sort of concert again.

This is probably gonna garner some flames, so Commence Primary Ignition....

Square-Enix is a good game company. They've put out some good things over the years. Heck, I was one of the (few) people who liked the Final Fantasy movie. I thought it was great! But SE's success didn't start with the movie, or even with FF7. It started with FF. That's right, just plain Final Fantasy.

I've played the version of FF that's been released for the GBA, and I tell you, this is RPGs as I remember them. You can clea

As awful and nerdy as it may be, even for slashdot, I'd probably so see this if they did it somewhere near Louisiana. Final Fantasy was the first RPG I ever played, and staying up until past midnight on the New Year's eve after the Christmas on which I receive it is one of my fonder memories. I just wanna feel the tingle of hearing a real orchestra play the fight music, just once.

The conductor seemed like she was intrigued, but I assume that was just her being polite.

Perhaps not. Orchestral music in North America is struggling, and many in the community are veryconcerned with finding ways to bring new ears to the concert hall. Performing music that is familiar to non-patrons is always a good way to do this -- sometimes this means falling back on well-known, standard repertoire like the Mozart Requiem or Carmina Burana instead of more challenging and obscure works, sometimes this